A bookseller in the business of protest

Sultan Singh Gautam, the founder of Gautam Book Center, does not give a damn about Flipkart, Amazon and the like. Most of the books he sells — some he publishes himself — are unlikely to be on the radar of people running these companies.
Himself a Dalit, Gautam has been, for long, collecting just about every book ever written on the caste system. Run out of a narrow, winding lane in Shahdara’s Hardevpuri, the store, with a collection of almost 4,000 titles, has made itself indispensable for any scholar working on caste in India. But it’s not fame or financial gain that Gautam is after. What drives him is an instinct to serve his community.